November 9, 2020: Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN) congratulates President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris on their election by a decisive majority of total votes cast and electoral college votes in the highest turnout election in U.S. history.

We are excited and eager to work with the incoming administration to reverse the harms wrought on people living with HIV and our communities over the past four years, while moving forward a bold agenda to restore, uphold, and expand our rights.

As the only national membership organization led by and for women and people of trans experience living with HIV, PWN looks forward to helping shape the new administration’s response to the domestic HIV epidemic, reproductive rights, and health care access, among other critical policy issues.

In particular, we urge the Biden-Harris administration to do everything in their power to:

  • Protect and expand on the progress made on health care access and affordability by the Affordable Care Act. Tens of thousands of people living with HIV in the U.S. gained access to health insurance through the ACA, mostly through the expansion of Medicaid, though also through the ACA’s protections for preexisting conditions. The Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments tomorrow in a case that could strike down the entire ACA, decimating health care coverage for potentially hundreds of thousands of people living with HIV and millions of others, in the midst of the covid19 pandemic. This makes it all the more crucial that the incoming administration act swiftly to ensure continuing access to care.
  • Protect and expand reproductive rights for all people. With a very conservative six-seat majority on the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade is in danger like never before. In the event that the Supreme Court overturns the landmark reproductive rights ruling, people who can get pregnant in the South and Midwest will be at immediate risk of losing their right to a safe, legal abortion. As with so much else, low-income and Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people who can get pregnant will suffer the consequences most acutely. It is crucial that the Biden-Harris administration prioritize ensuring and expanding reproductive rights, including abortion care and contraception access.
  • Defend, protect, and expand LGBTQ rights. The past four years have seen relentless attacks on the rights, dignity, and safety of LGBTQ people in general and transgender people in particular. We look forward to working with the Biden-Harris administration to make sure that everyone enjoys full rights in all settings, from housing to health care to schools to places of employment.
  • Advance racial justice and equity. 26 million people took to the streets this summer and fall to speak out against persistent systemic racism, including but not limited to police brutality and racism in law enforcement and the criminal “justice” system. This fall, they took to the polls. President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris have a clear mandate to address the continuing racial injustices and inequities in the U.S.
  • Ensure a public health response to covid19 and HIV grounded in science, evidence, and human rights. Public health crises demand public health solutions. The covid19 pandemic is currently raging out of control in the U.S., and we look forward to having a presidential administration that takes its cue from scientists in responding. We plan to work with the administration to make sure that in addressing both covid19 and HIV, it centers the equity and access needs of the most vulnerable and upholds human rights, recognizing that law enforcement and criminal justice are not instruments of public health.
  • Advance a compassionate immigration policy. Every human being deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of where they come from or the circumstances under which they have come. After four years of unceasing persecution and scapegoating of Black and brown immigrants replete with numerous, horrifying human rights violations, we urge the Biden-Harris administration to prioritize real immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people and access to health care regardless of immigration status.

 PWN looks forward to serving as a resource for the incoming Biden-Harris administration on all these policy priorities and more as they work to undo four years of assaults on our communities’ human rights.

###